


silver springs

by havisham



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: F/M, Moral Ambiguity, Post-Endgame, Second Chances, Second kisses, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-16
Updated: 2019-06-16
Packaged: 2020-05-13 05:19:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,125
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19244638
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/havisham/pseuds/havisham
Summary: time casts a spell on you / but you won't forget meI know I could have loved you, but you would not let meSteve and Peggy are old soldiers, reuniting.





	silver springs

**1970.**

Of course, she caught him. 

Or rather, Agent Fury recognized him instantly as soon as he’d reappeared on the base and though he’d fought furiously before being taken in, he _had_ been taken in. What was he? Surely not Steve Rogers, who was long dead, no matter how much he looked like him. Maybe Peggy’s subordinates thought she would go easy on a man who shared the face of her rumored-long lost love. They were wrong. 

“I’m here to return the Tesseract, and so I have,” Steve said stubbornly. They had been in the interrogation room for several hours now and the cup of coffee Peggy had helped herself earlier was quietly cooling in her hand. 

She looked at him skeptically. 

“If what you say is correct, then you can leave at this moment without anyone being the wiser.” 

“My equipment was confiscated,” he replied. 

“It’s being examined. You have some very interesting equipment.” 

“So I’ve been told. You’re going to have Zola take a look at it? I wouldn’t.” 

“Zola is … contained. There is no HYDRA left for him to betray us to.” 

“You’re sure about that?” 

Peggy’s hesitation spoke for her. The look Steve gave her was pitying and angry at once. So she asked him, once again, to tell her everything. 

“Turn off the recording.” 

She didn’t deny that there was one. Instead, she gave a nod and everything went quiet, except for the sound of their breathing. Sitting face to face with him, it was easy to see some differences between him and her memories of him. He did look older, but not thirty years older. 

Well, time travel. Imagine that. 

After his long and rather meandering story -- which she did not bother to note that if his objective was to slip in and out of the timestream, pulling the necessary stones back in their places as unobtrusively as possible -- he had made a pig’s ear of it. 

She called back the rest of Steve’s equipment -- they had not been given over to Zola for examination, upon her orders and Howard was away, making the most of the time he spent with the pregnant Maria. 

“Everything present and accounted for?” she asked him as he got ready to leave. 

“Yes, thank you.” 

“You shouldn't thank me,” Peggy assured him. “Agent Fury was the one assigned to your detention. She's one of my best assets.” 

“Does she have …? No, you know what, never mind. Peggy, it's been --” 

They eyed each other. Two old soldiers who were too canny to say what they really thought of things. Peggy asked, “Are you going to go back to your present, after this?” 

Steve hesitated. “Maybe. But after this I'm done.” 

Peggy smiled. It wasn't exactly friendly, but -- “Are you going to go earlier? I have to tell you, Rogers, I can't imagine going back to rations and such being an excellent retirement plan.” 

“Peggy --” 

“I'm going to kill Zola after you go.” 

“I know.” 

He smiled and then disappeared in front of her. 

Honestly, it was better than an ‘I love you.’ 

**1949**. 

It was an asinine thing to do, to fly back to New York just for the anniversary.

Both of the Jarvises and Howard made noises about accompanying her back there, but it was something Peggy had done for four years now and would continue until she died or the Stork Club closed. She certainly didn’t need company for such an excursion. Angie had enlisted her help into getting a new shade of lipstick -- available only from a certain store at a certain time, and Peggy walked to the club after having mailed it back to her. 

She was tired. It had been such a long day -- such a long week, month, decade! She accepted a seat at a quiet table in the back, away from the dance floor and readied herself for a drink, a cigarette and then a few hours of melancholic pleasure. 

It was something to look forward to, perversely. Peggy had taken steps to make sure she was never bothered during her little vigils. The last man to have tried had lived to regret his rashness. 

Peggy had taken only a few sips of her drink when a shadow fell across her table. “Thank you, I don’t need anything at present,” she said, to forestall the inevitable. But then she looked up and nearly fell out of her chair. 

Steve Rogers was in front of her, as he had been in so many of her dreams and fantasies. But unlike those dreams, he did not look exactly as she had seen him last. His face was older, more weary and his hair was cut strangely. He was also sporting a beard, which did not suit him. But there could be no doubt about the matter -- this was Steve. 

In order to confirm, Peggy took out a revolver from her small, beaded purse and took a shot at him. The bullet dinged on the tin-plated roof and stayed there. Steve still had his old reflexes too. 

“If this some trick or illusion,” Peggy said severely, putting away her gun, “it isn’t funny in the least.”

“It’s not,” Steve assured her. He offered her a hand. “I think you owe me a dance, Agent Carter.” 

“You’ve been dead far too long for me to owe you anything,” she pointed out. He smiled, acknowledging the hit. 

They danced and he told her what had happened to him since she had seen him last. If Peggy had not herself witnessed so many strange and improbable things since the beginning of the war, she would have been tempted to dismiss it all. A talking racoon? Howard, having a son more impossibly smart and aggravating than himself? 

Bucky Barnes, also alive, if not well? 

But his words had a ring of truth in them -- an impossible truth that if Peggy didn’t trust him so well, she would have rejected anyway. She knew she had to bring him in. Despite appearances, despite his words -- it could all be trap, somehow. It could just be some fond dream -- or the beginnings of a nightmare. 

She ran her hand against his cheek, feeling the roughness of his stubble. “It would be wonderful if this was real, Steve.”

“It is real,” he said softly and Peggy smiled. 

They kissed -- it was their second kiss and even better than the first, as neither of them were going to die in the next five minutes. At least, Peggy hoped that was true. 

“Well, we’ll see,” Peggy said, stepping away from him. The nerve toxin hadn’t been calibrated for someone like him -- there wasn’t anyone like him, not anymore -- but he gave her a little sarcastic salute before he went under. 


End file.
